Girl Meets STEM
Girl Meets STEM (formerly known as Girl Meets Sludge) is the twenty-sixth episode in season 2 of Girl Meets World and the 47th episode overall. It aired on January 8, 2016 to 1.6 million viewers. Overview Riley is upset when the boys at school won’t let her participate in a science experiment and attempts to become more involved. Plot In science class, where Riley and Farkle, and Maya and Lucas are lab partners, they are told their mid-term experiment will be to figure out how to turn the sludge created from dropping a marble into a beaker of clear liquid back into a clear liquid. One person is supposed to drop the marble in the beaker after school, the other is to figure out the science the next day. Maya doesn’t want to do anything at all, so Lucas tells her all she has to do is drop the marble into the liquid. Riley, however, is offended when Farkle insists she drop the marble and he do the rest of the work. When she walks into the classroom to drop the marble, she sees that every single boy-girl team sent the girl to drop the marble so the boy could do the science. Riley is outraged, and refuses to drop the marble. When Farkle comes to class the next day and sees that Riley didn’t drop the marble, he insists that they get different grades, because it’s not his fault that she didn’t do her part. Riley makes a feministic speech, and calls all the girls to join her in the bay window. In the bay window, Riley has Topanga give the girls a little speech about how women tend to drift away from STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, math) because they think they’re supposed to, but that that they shouldn’t be afraid to pursue their dreams out of fear for how it will make them look. In class the next day, the girls collectively call out the boys for not believing in them to do the science. Though initially objecting to the accusation, Farkle quickly apologizes for not helping Riley get better at science instead of just doing the work for her. Back in science class, the girls and the boys are working on their projects separately, and they are all interested and eager to figure it out. Riley asks Farkle why he didn’t believe a girl could do the science, and he tells her that his decision to have her drop the marble and him do the science had nothing to do with the fact that she is a girl. He also tells her that upon studying the marble Riley didn’t drop, he has realized that it’s only mud, so he doesn’t understand why this project is such a big deal. Riley looks around at all the girls and boys working enthusiastically and realized that maybe the project was never about the sludge at all. As all the others have failed to turn their sludge into a clear liquid, Riley and Farkle point out that their liquid is clear because Riley refused to drop the marble. The teacher tells them that they figured it out: In middle school, girls tend to drift away from science, and usually when he runs this project, the girls drop the marble without even thinking about it, leaving the boys to do the science. He runs this project every year hoping to make the girls aware of their potential and keep them from drifting away from STEM subjects. Cast Main cast *Rowan Blanchard as Riley Matthews *Ben Savage as Cory Matthews *Sabrina Carpenter as Maya Hart *Peyton Meyer as Lucas Friar *August Maturo as Auggie Matthews *Corey Fogelmanis as Farkle Minkus / Brenda *Danielle Fishel as Topanga Matthews Guest cast *Jeff Doucette as Mr. Norton *Amir Mitchell-Townes as Zay Babineaux *Ava Kolker as Ava Morgenstern *Haley Hauser as Haley *Sarah Carpenter as Sarah *Darby Walker as Darby Walker *Yindra Zayas as Yindra Quotes Trivia *STEM is an acronym for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics *This episode has the lowest viewers to date with 1.616 million viewers. It is also one of the only 3 episode of the show to ever get below 2 million viewers. The others are Girl Meets Farkle and Girl Meets Commonism. *This is the first episode that aired in 2016. *This episode deals with gender bias and equality. *This is the first episode a lesson taught by Cory is irrelevant to the main plot. *Maya falls asleep during class. *Auggie (6) plays soccer for the Frogs, Ava (10) plays for the Crushers. The Crushers beat the Frogs 29-0. *The cast wrapped up the filming this episode on June 30, 2015. *The Science classroom number is 15. *The life lesson is taught by Mr. Norton (Science Teacher). *Brenda makes her third appearance. *Final appearance of Haley in Season 2. *The girls reprise the Mayaville chant from Girl Meets Rules. *Mr. Norton claims to have used the Marble Experiment for 35 years. *Originally, the Science teacher was named Murphy, but was changed during production to Norton, probably in honor of Ed Norton (the character played by Art Carney from the 1950's TV series The Honeymooners) who as an "underground sanitation engineer" was very familiar with sludge. This appears confirmed when in the tag, Maya calls out the name in the same way Ralph Kramden, (Norton's best friend, played by Jackie Gleason) always did. *The First Battle of Panipat occurred in Northern India in 1526, and is considered to be among the earliest conflicts which extensively used weaponry based on the technological advances of gunpowder. *Yogi reveals he does not enjoy being carried around as much as Darby believes. *Riley calls Farkle a "sexist pig". *Although Nicholas Jabonero appears (with speaking dialogue) as Yogi, his name isn't seen in this episode's end credits. ' ' *Science Class Teams: **Lucas & Maya **Riley & Farkle **Zay & Sarah **Haley & Wyatt **Yindra & Dave **Darby & Yogi Gallery Transcript Video References Category:Episodes Category:Season 2 Category:Season 2 episodes Category:Aired episodes